Head of Palestinian NGO: Protest by donor countries over naming a youth center after a terrorist, that PMW exposed, is an attempt to make Palestinians accept “the occupier’s narrative”

The Voice of Palestine, official PA radio station
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Oct. 31, 2017

The Voice of Palestine, the official PA radio station, program On the Table, on foreign donor states cutting funding for the Women’s Affairs Technical Committee (WATC) after it named a center in the village of Burqa, north of Ramallah, after terrorist Dalal Mughrabi – who led the murder of 37, 12 of them children, which was exposed by PMW; hosting Women’s Affairs Technical Committee board of directors Head Samia Bamia and thinker and investigator Najed Shahin

Official PA radio host: “The funders are placing conditions on our receipt of the funding, and accusing us of incitement and terror due to the naming of the women’s center after Martyr (Shahida) Dalal Mughrabi (i.e., terrorist who led murder of 37, 12 of them children) – this is what Women’s Affairs Technical Committee board of directors Head Samia Bamia emphasized in a press conference yesterday [Oct. 30, 2017]… Why does Martyr Dalal Mughrabi’s name arouse the anger of the funding bodies with which you have been partners side by side in a number of plans and projects over several years? And on the other hand, is this the first clash to take place between the Women’s Affairs Technical Committee and the funding bodies?”

Women’s Affairs Technical Committee board of directors Head Samia Bamia: “The naming was by the residents of [the village of] Burqa, the women of Burqa. The staff [of the committee] had no role [in it], and had no right to tell the residents which name to choose… When they [the funding states] talk about an agenda of equality we are for [it]. [When] they talk about an agenda of democracy we are for [it]. [When] they talk about an agenda of human rights we are for [it]. But when national belonging turns into something forbidden, here the danger begins. Despite the fact that we are working in the field of women’s rights, they came to settle accounts with us over our thoughts about our nationality and its defense. I think that we need to be more alert. What is happening now and in stages – although now it is intensifying – is an attempt to bra nd our national consciousness. An attempt [to make] me not only accept an agenda that is connected to development, but also make me accept the occupier’s narrative, which these [funding] states are adopting. I, as a victim of this occupier, will remain in the end as if I was the hangman… I think that the stage is more dangerous now, because they are not only taking the land and the future from you by force, but they [also] want to take your identity and history from you by force.”

Women's Affairs Technical Committee (WATC) - a Palestinian NGO committed to advocate Palestinian women's rights. WATC states on its website that many of its members are also members of the PLO but the WATC itself is not a member of the PLO.

Dalal Mughrabi led the most lethal terror attack in Israel’s history, known as the Coastal Road massacre, in 1978, when she and other Fatah terrorists hijacked a bus on Israel's Coastal Highway, murdering 37 civilians, 12 of them children, and wounding over 70.